Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Companies like attractive applicants

Some research has shown that job applicants are much more likely to get called for an interview if they are physically attractive. The study used identical resumes, and only the pictures were different. The effect was more pronounced for female applicants. Sorry, I lost the link.

They authors suggested some subconscious invidious discriminination to the detriment of the hiring company.

Maybe not. Here are other explanations.

1. Maybe beautiful people have superior genes that make them better workers. Evolution would predict this, as the beautiful applicant probably had a beautiful and choosy mom who only mated with a man who was superior in multiple ways, including heritable job skills.

2. Maybe beautiful ppl are happier, better adjusted, and better socialized because they have always been treated with the respect that beauty draws, while ugly ppl are lonely, bitter, uncooperative, and distrustful.

3. Maybe beautiful and ugly applicants do equivalent work, but the beautiful workers inspire co-workers to do better work. Maybe the guys work harder to impress the pretty girl.

If any of these theories is true, then it makes sense for companies to try to hire beautiful applicants. Otherwise, companies could save time and money by hiring the ugly applicants.

“Our research shows that people infer a wide range of personality traits just by looking at the physical features of a particular body,” says psychological scientist Ying Hu of the University of Texas at Dallas, first author on the research. “Stereotypes based on body shape can contribute to how we judge and interact with new acquaintances and strangers. Understanding these biases is important for considering how we form first impressions.”

Previous research has shown that we infer a considerable amount of social information by looking at other people’s faces, but relatively little research has explored whether body shapes also contribute to these judgments.

Certain psychological traits make ppl much more suited for some jobs over others, so maybe employers should be judging physical appearance more.